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I believe Latinos fall into the "white" category. This opens up a can of worms, because many Hispanic ethnicities are mixes of Spanish with Indian/indigenous, while others have black in the mix. I can see how it could cause confusion. My own personal opinion, all in all, I categorize Latinos as 'white'.

I don't know why Alaskans would be even have their own category. Native American is Native American (although I say "Native Indian").

I am Azorian (Portuguese), and I've always check-marked 'white' in such questionaires. But in this current census, my husband mentioned that I probably should check Hispanic, and that took me by surprise. I tossed it back and forth, not sure of which way to swing, but stayed with 'white'.

The whole damn process is getting so convoluted.

Your race is how you identify yourself. If both your parents were born in mexico but you don't consider yourself hispanic, you do not need to identify yourself as such on the census

I have to agree with you, I was very displeased with this survey and was actually offended to mark off the box that had "Negro" in it, like its 1965 again. And yes they should have represented other groups the same as they did for Latino and Asian. In the white box even people who are caucasian but not white are marked off like Arabs, how will we get an accurate count of people of Middle Eastern descent if we don't specify. Same thing with Caribbean Blacks or Blacks from Africa. But I think the name "Latino" comes from Latin America, which has a different demographic than Spain or Portugal.

The negro thing has to do with the fact that there are a whole bunch of people who identify with that label around the country. It was controversial to include it but the census bureau has records which indicate a substantial number of people write that in after checking "some other race".

Twist theoretically we are all a mxture or races..as there is nobody that is pure anything..we are all different degrees of one or the other. My primary issue is why are you forced to choose a category called white, when it is not a race but whatever America deems certain ethnic groups. Caucasian is a race..which would encompass Europeans, Arabs, many Hispanics, and Indians (from India). Clearly there is a purpose in this choice..and based on what bluedog indicated, I would tend to agree with him.

Twist...as a result of the census the way it is now, it is impossible to know how many arabs/middle easterners are in this country because they simply choose white? Some other race? Who knows...I think it is purposeful as a large segment of the country, as bluedog indicated, would be mortified to know the actual numbers. Fear is a big motivator and tool to control people in this country (and probably every country for that matter).

While we are all a mixture of races, the question being posed to you is how you identify. If you are half-black and half-white, but feel like you are only one, then you should mark only one. If you feel like you're asian, no one is going to check up on you about it.

Statistics can be used to produce a very, very accurate accounting of whatever ethnic group one wants to count. No one is hiding how many of any ethnicity is in this country. Demographers expect that somewhere between 2040 and 2050, non-hispanic whites in the US will account for less than 50% of the population.

"White" is on there because the census is reflecting American understanding of racial groups. The names for the racial groupings change over time. I would not be surprised if "middle eastern" ethnicity is one of the boxes in the 2020 census.

Supermario..why would you check other race and put mulatto, when mulatto is white and black..and you can simply check both those boxes on the census. That adds yet another layer of confusion.

I will agree that the whole thing is convoluted, and as I stated before, I cannot really choose "white" as a racial category for myself because A: White is not a race, just whatever ethnicities America chooses to call white. Caucasian is a race. B: I am not black, and not asian, so by process of elimination I am forced to choose white. If caucasian were an option I would simply choose that.

However, as bluedog stated, I don't think America can stand the idea that arabs, europeans, and a significant percentage of Hispanics are also caucasian and thus all fall under the same category. However, they can simply have "caucasian" and then have subsets to check off as they do for Hispanics and Asians. It would have the correct racial classification (caucasian), and the subsets of European derived, Arab, Indian (from India), and Hispanic for an accurate representation of America. But I suspect the results would be too scary for this country to handle. This is sad.

Race is a social construct formed by Western Europeans during the time of exploration and in turn, White is one of the social constructs in terms of race that has been created. It generally is for those of European, Middle Eastern and even North African descent of ORIGIN(key word) in this country.

Race is a social construct formed by Western Europeans during the time of exploration and in turn, White is one of the social constructs in terms of race that has been created. It generally is for those of European, Middle Eastern and even North African descent of ORIGIN(key word) in this country.

I think SobroGuy was referring to the 5 "official " race classifications that are recognized by anthropologists.Anyone who has taken Anthro 101 learns that there are 5 races and Caucasian( or Caucasoid) is one of the 5.
The other 4 are:
MONGOLOID ....(Mongolian,Asian,American Indian)
AUSTRALOID.... (Australian aboriginals)
NEGROID..........( East African Black) and
CAPOID............( South African Black)
Under this theory or classification everyone else of any mixture( which is most of us) are considered MONGRELS.Mongrel or MONGRELOID is probably what most people should classify themselves as in the census.
The whole notion or acceptance of races is very subjective but Caucasian is in fact one of the 5 widely recognized races.
White isn't and neither is black,brown, red or yellow. Those are colors.

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